The present invention relates to a supporting strip for the connections of capacitors or the like, a strip provided with such connections and its use for the production of capacitors.
It more specifically relates to a capacitor connection supporting strip provided with a flat support having pairs of slots regularly distributed along the support, each pair of slots being formed by an upper slot and a lower slot, which serve to receive the hairpin-shaped connections, whose two lateral arms positively traverse the same, whereby each capacitor is fixed between the two arms of the hairpin and substantially at the end thereof. This procedure for fixing capacitors by means of a strip provided with such hairpin-like members is used particularly widely in the production of flat capacitors and specifically those of the "paving block" type. Thus, when producing e.g. ceramic capacitors constituted solely by two metal foils separated by a dielectric material, the hairpin-like connections are positioned on each metal part of the disk. In this case, it is consequently necessary to bend these connections in order to respectively bring them above and below the disk. When the two connections are interconnected to form such a hairpin-like member, they exert a reaction on one another leading to a clamping of the disk so as to maintain it between the two arms of the pin, thereby permitting easy manipulation or handling during the following production stages of such capacitors. However, there can still be a problem of the disk pivoting between the two arms unless certain precautions are taken. To solve this problem, the hairpin-like member can be shaped in such a way that the forces applied by the arms are in the same plane. There can also be a bending of the arms below the disk in order to prevent such a pivoting action.
However, the problem is different in the case of multilayer capacitors. Thus, in this case, the metal coatings on which the arms of the hairpin-like member must bear are no longer disposed on the upper and lower faces of the capacitor and are instead positioned laterally. These connections, generally produced by metal spraying, are therefore of limited thickness and surface area and are positioned laterally with respect to the said upper and lower faces of the capacitor.
Therefore, the hairpins used are positioned in such a way that each of the arms thereof comes into contact with the said surfaces of the connections or sprayed coatings. When the physical contact is established between the end of the arms and the connections, mechanical and electrical assembly thereof generally takes place by immersion in a liquid solder bath. This operation causes two problems, which are especially difficult to solve. The first problem is that of maintaining a sufficient application force of the arms on the electrical connections to prevent the "paving stone" from disengaging from the arms during the insertion and removal of the capacitor with respect to the solder bath. The second problem is to prevent the rotation of the arms with respect to the capacitor during the same operations, whereby in both cases the thus produced capacitors cannot then be used.
As in the case of disk-type ceramic capacitors, it has already been proposed in the case of multilayer capacitors to effect a bending, curving or cambering of the arms of the hairpin-like member in order to bring about a gripping or clamping of the "paving stone" and consequently obviate the aforementioned problems. However, such a solution has a certain number of disadvantages. Thus, the production process for such capacitors involves a supplementary stage during which the arms are bent to give the hairpin its clamping action. Bearing in mind the extremely low cost of such capacitors, such a supplementary stage has a possibly determinative effect on the production price thereof, which must be reduced to maximum.